{"id":25303,"date":"2025-05-18T16:56:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T20:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=25303"},"modified":"2025-05-18T16:56:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T20:56:49","slug":"we-have-a-new-pope-now-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2025\/05\/we-have-a-new-pope-now-what\/","title":{"rendered":"We Have a New Pope! Now What?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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image via Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

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So, we have a new Pope.<\/h3>\n

The new Pope\u2019s name is Leo XIV, an American, and everybody\u2019s got an opinion about him. I do too. I was having fun teasing the MAGAs on social media a couple weeks ago after the conclave, because the new Pope seems to despise J. D. Vance. But I haven\u2019t written much more about him, except for a few paragraphs on my other blog<\/a> talking about how significant it is that he\u2019s from the US this time.\u00a0 Here, on the specifically Catholic blog, I\u2019ve been hesitating to say much. That\u2019s deliberate on my part. He hasn\u2019t done anything for me to write about yet. I\u2019m waiting to see what happens.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in a period now where everybody in the Church squeals with excitement over Pope Leo, and tries to exclaim that the Pope\u2019s notions about Catholicism are exactly like their own.<\/h3>\n

Leo wore a little more bling when he came out to the balcony to greet us than Francis did, and he\u2019s moving back into the traditional papal apartments, therefore some traditionalists have decided he\u2019s one of them. He retweeted perfectly normal run-of-the-mill Catholic doctrine about immigrants, and Republicans start denouncing him as a woke Marxist. Everything he does will be the subject of intense speculation like this for some time. And then, when the commentators have decided whether the Pope is sufficiently like them or not, they\u2019ll start painting every single thing he does as either a sign of his sanctity or a sign that he\u2019s the Antipope until he passes away. I\u2019m holding out on giving much of an opinion, because Leo hasn\u2019t actually done anything as Pope yet. If I find out tomorrow that he gave President Zelenskyy one of those little hard candies that looks like a strawberry during their private audience, and then chased J. D. Vance out of the Vatican while breaking a Baptismal candle, that will be worthy of a remark. So far, nothing like that has happened.<\/p>\n

In addition to speculating, commentators have begun warning Pope Leo about things he\u2019d better not do, and the Pope has been ignoring them.<\/h3>\n

For example, our old pal Raymond Arroyo has publicly announced that immigration, of all things, is \u201cnot the Pope\u2019s job!\u201d And I encourage you to read my friend Henry Matthew Alt\u2019s whole takedown of that absurd statement<\/a>, because I couldn\u2019t possibly have done a better job. Of course, immigrants are the Pope\u2019s business. Of course, the man whose job it is to lead the Catholic Church is going to have a lot to say about the way people ought to treat immigrants. It would be ridiculous to say otherwise. And I do appreciate what the Pope is saying so far. But he\u2019s just being a Catholic. It\u2019s not extraordinary in any way.<\/p>\n

The Church has never been leftist or right-wing or Trad or progressive; it\u2019s only ever been the Church.<\/p>\n

And I know you\u2019re already in the comment box typing why your particular Catholic clique is the true, authentic Catholicism and everyone else is going to hell, but the fact is, you\u2019re wrong.<\/h3>\n

You see, American Catholics like you and I only make up 7% of the Church. And by that I mean the 1.4 billion members of the Church Militant who happen to be on earth just now; we\u2019re a much tinier demographic of the Church throughout history. The political and cultural squabbles we attempt to project on Catholicism are our own. They\u2019re very important to us, in our journey as Catholics. But they\u2019re not the Catholic Church. Even now that the Pope is from the United States, that doesn\u2019t make the Church American.\u00a0 The Catholic Church, take it or leave it, is just the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church is a body of believers who live all over the world, try to live out the teachings in different ways, and are very different from one another, and usually get into fights about who\u2019s right, and often hurt one another<\/a>. The teachings of the Catholic Church are a body of teachings, some of which are indelible dogma and some of which evolve with time, and we trust that when we profess a dogma we profess a truth, and we hope that as the doctrine develops bit by bit it gets closer and closer to what the Holy Ghost was trying to tell us. The magisterium of the Catholic Church is a hierarchy of men who wear silly hats, and we trust Christ\u2019s declaration that the gates of Hell will not prevail, sometimes because of and sometimes in spite of the magisterium\u2019s best efforts.<\/p>\n

And Pope Leo is the one who gets to be the boss of the Catholic Church for the next several years.<\/h3>\n

And my only remark, so far, is to be careful not to project your own notions of what that means onto somebody else. Let\u2019s pray for him, and watch and see what he does. That\u2019s all.<\/p>\n

Well, that and I\u2019m glad he seems to despise J. D. Vance.<\/p>\n

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Mary Pezzulo is the author of\u00a0Meditations on the Way of the Cross,\u00a0<\/a>The Sorrows an<\/a>d Joys of Mary<\/a>, and\u00a0Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to \u201cThe Little Portion\u201d on\u00a0paypal<\/a>\u00a0or Mary Pezzulo on\u00a0venmo<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0 So, we have a new Pope. The new Pope\u2019s name is Leo XIV, an American, and everybody\u2019s got an opinion about him. I do too. I was having fun teasing the MAGAs on social media a couple weeks ago after the conclave, because the new Pope seems to despise J. D. Vance. But I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":25246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14783,9516],"tags":[196,2069,2257,2566,1921],"class_list":["post-25303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-christianity","category-catholic","tag-catholic","tag-conservative","tag-liberal","tag-pope","tag-raymond-arroyo"],"yoast_head":"\nWe Have a New Pope! 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